Prince 0f Blood (Dracula's Bloodline Book 3)

by Ana Calin

  The way he looks while he talks to Tristan, focused but cold, sends chills through my body, making me want to brace myself. I could feel him changing from my lover to warrior as we made our way back to the castle. By the time we parked the SUV at the edge of the forest I could barely recognize the lover I shared my body and blood with yesterday, the spot where he bit me still pulsing on my throat.

  He turns to one of the vampire women.

  “Irina, give Lady Rux a chamber, and be ready to assist her.”

  A sexy blonde with a killer body in a red dress approaches me. Once inside a dingy reception room, something that looks like a souvenir shop, she touches my elbow.

  “Lets go.”

  I follow her, but look after Vlad who’s disappearing down an opposite hallway, his head with the long black hair marking him as taller than all the others who are marching after him.

  “We’ll get you the best room,” Irina says in a Slavic accent, benevolence in her tone.

  As I follow her up spiraling wooden stairs, I’m starting to feel guilty for the jealous way I’m looking at her. It’s not her fault that my lover, the man I gave myself to completely yesterday, has started to treat me like crap. Judging by the stories from the ‘real world’ where I come from, it shouldn’t really surprise me, should it? All men lose interest after they fuck you a few times, don’t they?

  Irina opens the door to a bedchamber, one that must have once belonged to a queen. Reddish stone on the floor, fluffy carpets, a bed with beautifully carved wooden bedposts and bed boards makes my jaw drop. This is a real, authentic, centuries-old queen’s bedchamber.

  “The last Romanian queen spent a few nights here,” Irina says, lighting candles on the windowsill. It gives the room a cozy feel, the candle flame casting a warm glow on the walls that give me a feeling of magic.

  Still standing at the open door, I watch her move around, throwing logs on the fire. Jealousy spears my heart with every thought that crosses my mind—could she be interested in Vlad? He said he hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, but look at the beauties surrounding him. What if he fucks every new female he turns into a vampire?

  “Did you ever sleep with him?” I ask directly, unable to control myself. Sweat pools in my palms in expectation of the answer.

  Irina stands up straight, her pretty face shocked for a moment. The blonde would fit really well on the cover of a magazine, especially in this dress that showcases her sporty and sexy body, all lace over a red bra, shiny fabric hugging her legs to her knees.

  “No,” she says, stirring me from my jealous appraisal. “But you have, haven’t you?”

  My mouth goes dry. Vlad was cold to me in front of his vampires, surely he wouldn’t want anyone to know. I shake my head, listening to my instinct, and walk inside the room, closing the door.

  “No, but I can’t deny that I would like to,” I justify my jealous question. “Wouldn’t you?”

  She gives me a warm smile, as if she understands what I’m going through. “Lord Dracula and I don’t have that kind of interest in each other, rest assured.”

  I turn my back to her to hide the embarrassing relief I feel, my hand touching the bedpost.

  “Am I supposed to be convalescing here?”

  “How is Radek?” Irina asks, shocking me. I turn swiftly.

  “What? My dad?”

  She just waits for the answer, smile on her face.

  “He’s fine, I guess. But how come you know him?” I press.

  “Your dad and I used to be a couple.” She walks to the wardrobe, opening it and bending down, sifting through blankets. “For years, when he was trying to fight what he felt for your mother, Juliet.” She gives me a glance over her shoulder. “Pretty much like Lord Dracula is trying to fight his feelings for you now.”

  She straightens up and turns around, walking over with a folded duvet in her hands.

  “If I hadn’t lived with Radek for five years, seeing him die a bit more every day because he missed Juliet, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the same thing beginning to happen in Lord Dracula’s face. But they’re brothers, and they are more alike than they think. Lord Dracula is trying to stifle a fire that will never die.” She looks at me as she arranges the bed. “And things are only going to get worse for him, but he doesn’t know it yet.”

  I just stare at her baffled. She’s taller than me, and svelte, hot as hell, but unnervingly likeable.

  “Have you and I met before, too?” I whisper.

  “No, not face to face. But I heard a whole lot about you.” She glances at the bed. “As for the convalescence, I gather you know the process that newborn vampires go through—you’ve seen Dalton’s fever and sickness. We expect that to happen with you as well and, to be honest, I’m surprised the symptoms haven’t kicked in yet.” She walks to a cabinet, takes out a pair of surgical gloves, then she extracts a silver needle from her pocket.

  She holds it up before she places it on the bedside table. “Just to test. Every day, for three days, I’d like you to touch this pin. If you’re turning into a vampire, your body will begin to feel much harder, and you’ll start breaking things because you grab them with too much force, but silver should be hurting you.”

  I open my mouth to speak but she holds up her hand. “I know. You have special power over silver, and this could be different for you. If the silver doesn’t affect you, try to put your hand out into a ray of sun. If you can take that too without your skin burning, well, then, it means that by some miracle you’re not turning. In the end, you are Dracula’s Grail, and that is a very special thing.”

  I narrow my eyes, walking around her, eyes on the needle. “Dracula’s Grail. I’ve heard that before. What exactly does it mean?”

  She raises her eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t know?”

  I just stare at her expectantly. She swallows, looking around, fidgeting uncomfortably. It seems she doesn’t want to talk too much, but then she decides to go with it.

  “It is said that every vampire has their own Grail, meaning someone whose blood makes them immune to silver and sunlight,” she says. “You are Dracula’s very own, personal Grail.”

  So it’s not just any human’s blood that can temporarily free him of these weaknesses.

  “How long has he known that I’m the one?” I breathe.

  Irina purses her lips and places firm hands on my shoulders, looking gravely into my face. She keeps her voice low.

  “Listen carefully. If you’re still alive after he took your blood, then there’s nothing more you need to worry about. You don’t need to fear him, and that’s a huge deal. But.” She brings her face closer, making this more hushed, and more intimate. “There are people here who would actively seek to hurt you, especially because you’re so important to him. Watch your back when the Old Priest is around, and the red-breaded guard, Gruia.”

  She glances at the door, licking her lips, then she turns her eyes to me again, speaking fast and hushed.

  “The talisman Gruia wears, the golden one.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s special. This is gonna sound really crazy, but—”

  “I’ve seen a whole lot of crazy lately, I assure you,” I push when she hesitates. “A curse has been following me my entire life, then I found out Dracula existed, my father was the Prince of Midnight, now all this. Trust me, nothing can shock me anymore.”

  She glances at the door again. “That talisman contains an evil spirit. One that has scores to settle with both your mother and your father. Someone you yourself have met before.”

  “Please, don’t play around. Tell me what you mean exactly.”

  “The Bloody Maries that you fought years ago. They were under the command of a witch named Victoria—the evil spirit inside that talisman.

  “She used to run this castle back when your father was Lord of it, but she was also in love with him, always hoping he’d take her to wife. When he fell in love with Juliet, she lost her mind, and swore rev
enge. She betrayed him to Lord Dracula, offering help against Radek, with whom Lord Dracula had been in conflict for many decades. Back then, your father was known as the Prince of Midnight, and he—”

  “Yes, I know, the midnight monster, the curse. He turned into a hideous beast at nightfall, and one look into his face could infect people.”

  “Yes, well, it turned out your mother was a healer, and her touch could heal him of the midnight monster. It’s the reason why they fell so madly in love, their chemistry was uniquely beneficial for each other. Your mother healed him of the monster, and healing him unlocked her powers of healing others as well. But Radek’s power to curse people with one look into his face remained.

  “During the final battle between vampires and your father in the catacombs that link this castle to the mountains, Victoria looked into your father’s face. That caused her to transform into a creature caught between dimensions, which means she can’t take full physical shape in this world, she’s like some sort of hologram that exists in multiple worlds and in many time periods all at the same time.”

  “Like a genie,” I whisper, dropping on the bed and remembering the woman with the half white and half black hair, looking like a transparent version of Cruella de Ville. Irina sits down by my side.

  “I remember her,” I whisper, eyes lost on the glow of the candle playing on the wall in front of me. The scene flashes before my eyes.

  I was walking through an icy forest, a white nightgown flapping around my body. I didn’t mind the cold biting my feet, I actually enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the power I had over the trees, like an invisible force growing from me, splitting into a thousand arms, and tearing spikes from the trees, throwing them at the zombie women who made piping sounds all through the woods.

  They attacked the one creature in this world that I loved—Juliet Jochs, the woman who bathed me and brushed my hair in the mirror, singing to me, not minding the disturbing sight of me with huge black eyes and skeleton-like, white face. Now, they would pay for treating such a worthy soul as if it were nothing. They would learn her worth by feeling pain every time they dared as much as think ill about her.

  The witch Victoria faced me, spitting some kind of warning. I saw the evil in her eyes, the jealousy and the bloodlust. I knew I’d enjoy hurting her. I tilted my head to the side when she told me to stop.

  “Or what?” I said mockingly in my eerie child voice that made her hologram tremble.

  “Lord Dracula punished her after all that,” Irina says. “He confined her to the talisman that her old time lover, Gruia, now wears around his neck.”

  Gruia, the mean-looking red-bearded vampire. I keep staring at the light on the wall, reliving the memory that I now see so clearly.

  “Beware of Victoria,” Irina concludes. “She and her lover Gruia will try to hurt you, badly, or use you against Dracula. Even if you ever want to be free of him, I suggest you never accept her help. She won’t offer it for free, she will want something in return, and it will be a price you won’t want to pay.”

  Rux

  WEEKS LATER, AT THE next vampire gathering at the castle, Gruia keeps his eyes on me. The talisman with the confined Victoria hangs around his neck like a leash from which she leads him. I walk around with a chalice of wine in my hand, just to see if he’s really following me. I smile to myself, slinking behind a pillar and making a torch flare on the wall right next to him with the power of my mind.

  I stifle a laugh as the big bad Gruia flinches.

  Instead of becoming a vampire, since I exchanged blood with Vlad I recovered my ability of moving things with my mind, and working easily with silver, which kind of worries all the vampires except for Irina.

  “They are all weary of you,” the rough voice of Gruia reaches me from behind. I’m leaning on a wall in the corner, watching the vampires talk and fidget in the main hall, waiting on their Lord Dracula to make his entrance.

  Gruia stands a few feet away, feet planted apart, and arms folded across his chest. I notice his skin, although smooth and beautiful to the human eye, is actually red and blotchy. Thanks to my new and improved eyesight, I can now see how hideous he truly is.

  “If you come any closer, I’ll make it hurt,” I say calmly, but letting the dark power he fears burn in my eyes.

  He motions with his bearded chin to the gathering.

  “You’re a subject on their agenda, today. It’s been weeks, it’s clear you’re not turning into a vampire, and they want you gone. You unsettle them.”

  I sip from my wine, my eyes moving over the vampires, noticing some of them stealing suspicious glances at me and whispering with each other.

  “How about you, Gruia? Do I unsettle you?”

  “I don’t know.” He takes a few steps closer, ignoring my warning. I know it’s his way of showing me he’s the boss, and I’m just about to teach him a lesson, when he says, “But it does interest me how you were able to take Dracula’s blood and not turn.”

  I relax against the wall with the wine in my hand, and jut out my chin. “Because I wasn’t a normal human in the first place. I carried the power of a demon, and you know it better than anyone.”

  A frown creases his forehead. “Do I?”

  I sip from my wine again, relaxed. “I remember what happened thirteen years ago, Gruia. You were there.” I look into his reddish eyes. I can see he didn’t expect this. “When my parents cut me off from the source of darkness, they also cut me off from my memory. The trip with Lord Dracula to the Northern Monastery, and the exchange of blood with him, have brought back that connection.”

  “Oh, my. Then the vampires have every reason to be scared of you.”

  “Why would I be a threat to them?”

  “You now remember vampires were your parents’ enemies, and you can manipulate silver. Silver is deadly to vampires. You’re a walking weapon.”

  I scan him up and down as he stands there with his arms across his chest, frowning at me.

  “But you aren’t scared of me, are you, Gruia?”

  He shifts his position, touching the talisman. “I’m here to help you.”

  I laugh so hard that some vampires look over.

  “Right, just like you wanted to help Radek and Juliet all those years ago—my parents.” I start walking to him, forcing him to walk backwards from behind the pillar, exposing him to the vampires as my interlocutor.

  “I know you used to work for Radek. You’re a warrior he brought back from the Middle Ages,” I say as I approach like a threatening queen, dressed in a vaporous white gown and cradling a chalice of red wine in my hand. “You allied yourself with Victoria against him when he made it clear to her he’d never love her. And that he loved Juliet, the woman who raised me as a mother.”

  I stop in front of him, purposefully letting my eyes fill with intense black, letting it spread to the whites. It forces Gruia to tense even more because the sight of me must be disturbing as fuck.

  “What I don’t understand,” I whisper eerily, aware all the vampires are now watching, “is why you hated Radek so much? He never did anything to you. If anything, he helped you, he got you out of a filthy medieval prison where you were rotting to death. Why stab him in the back on the first chance you got?”

  He stares hard at me, trying to prove I don’t unsettle him when it’s obvious as hell he’d rather turn around and run. But I can see in his eyes he actually thinks he has a reason.

  “Gruia,” Vlad’s powerful voice fills the hall. Rustling of clothes and startled whispers mark the moment when all vampires turn to him, Gruia included.

  He walks to us in his leather and chains medieval attire, the chains on his boots clamoring, black cape hanging to his broad shoulders like the wings of a dark angel.

  He stops in front of us, his brutal face framed by wild black hair. Both Gruia and I follow protocol and bow.

  “What do you have to discuss privately with Lady Rux?”

  “I was merely preparing her for the agenda today, milord,
” Gruia replies, his head still down, but his jaw twitches. The bastard is angry, and fighting with all his might to keep it in check. “As you know, the vampires are worried about her presence among us, and your not doing what you promised.”

  I glance up at Vlad. “Promised? What did you promise?”

  Vlad looks coldly into my eyes, like he always does when others are present. He turns on his heels, the cape flowing behind him as he heads to the table, taking his kingly seat. His second in command, Tristan, who’s always by his side, remains standing on his right.

  “Gruia,” Vlad invites, without giving the man another look.

  Before he leaves, Gruia slips something in my hand. I flinch, not having expected him to have the guts to touch me.

  “You won’t trust me whatever I say,” he says under his breath. “But Dracula is your greatest enemy, not me.” He presses the object harder. “She will tell you why.”

  Then he shoots away from my side, and takes his seat at the long royal table.

  Being the only one who hasn’t transformed into a vampire, and since the others don’t want me anywhere near them, I sit in a chair by the wall in the company of Irina, the only vampire besides Vlad and Tristan who isn’t scared of me. She smiles, her gaze so warm it doesn’t even fit her cat-like eyes. She’s starting to remind me of my mum, Juliet.

  “Do you hate my mother?” I whisper to her while Vlad and the vampires discuss protection measures against the demon.

  “No, not anymore. I don’t think I ever hated her, I was just terribly jealous.”

  I smile, my eyes on Lord Dracula who is sitting in his impressive chair at the end of the long table like a king awkward in his own seat. He’s lived in a cave for so long that he’s turned wild and raw, a ruthless warlord that seems too brutal for this posh decorum.

  “Irina, I have to ask you something,” I whisper, now leaning closer to her ear. “Has Lord Dracula had any girlfriends, you know, these past centuries? I mean—” I don’t know what I mean, but Irina makes it easy on me by laughing, low, and tilting her head to me, too.